UFC 196 goes down next weekend and will see Conor McGregor square off against last-minute replacement Nate Diaz. Many fans believe that Diaz holds the grappling edge over Conor, but is it really so? We investigate the grappling skills of these two ninjas.

Nate Diaz's Jiu-Jitsu

Cesar Gracie Black Belt

Submission victories: 11

Submission Losses: 1

Though he is known for his stand-up skills, Nate Diaz is a jiu-jitsu fighter through and through. Besides racking up 11 submission finishes inside the cage, Nate continued to fight in gi and no-gi grappling events well after his professional MMA debut.

 Grappling in mixed martial arts is an entirely different animal than pure submission wrestling, but some things remain constant in Nate’s approach.

He posses an aggressive closed guard game and is quite comfortable on the bottom. He remains busy in MMA by adding in short elbows and strikes (and some smack-talk), while in pure grappling he hunts a variety of sweep and submission chains to constantly off-balance his opponent and force things in his favor.

When it comes to submissions, he's managed to hit the guillotine off weak takedowns more than once, including the highlight finish of Jim Miller at UFC on Fox 3, and an insane high-elbow guillotine on Melvin Guillard Diaz at UFC Fight Night 19.

Diaz is not a top game player and it seems he is much more comfortable using jiu-jitsu to either submit from the bottom or get back to his feet completely. This has proven to be a winning strategy as Diaz's opponents are either forced to stay in a dangerous guard or stand and trade with one of the best boxers in MMA.

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Conor McGregor's Jiu-Jitsu

SBGi Brown Belt

Submission Victory: 1

Submission Losses: 2

Having committed his career to MMA from the get-go, his style has been molded for the cage; we know much less about Conor from a pure grappling standpoint than Diaz. He only has one submission victory in MMA so far – and that was VERY early in his career.

This is not to say there haven’t been moments of grappling genius: the Denis Siver legdrag comes to mind.

Clever use of the cage by Conor effectively negates Siver’s ability to granby roll out of danger: instead, he was pinned face-down with Conor rained down blows. Not looking to punch himself out, Conor opted to transition to a leg-weave to mount. Very savvy groundwork.

More recently, Conor was able to neutralize Chad Mendes’s signature guillotine and use the failed submission attempt as an opportunity to get back to his feet. No easy task against one of the best wrestlers in the game.

Finally, we know that Conor trains with Gunnar Nelson (an ADCC medalist and one of the best grapplers in MMA) on a regular basis. It’s clearly had an effect on his overall grappling game.

Though many fans believe Diaz will be victorious if the fight goes to the ground, we're not so sure. Conor has proven that he can hang with the best and impose his own game. What we do know is that next weekend's fight is sure to deliver some great moments!